This invention relates to a wall-creeping toy.
A conventional wall-clambering toy, like as the toy woodpecker shown in FIG. 1, is provided with a ratchetlike caterpillar wheel provided with a plurality of wheelshoes each of which mounts a sucker disc alternately clinging onto the wall to hang the toy thereto, thus enabling the toy to move along the wall with the rotation of the caterpillar wheel. The layout of such toy however has several defects. First, the force that presses a sucker against the wall so that it may cling onto the wall is considerably weak, thus the suckers cannot always effectively fasten to the wall. Next, the caterpillar wheel is substantially a circle which geometrically allows only one point, i.e., the tangential point, to contact with the tangent line, in other words, only the sucker in its nadir functions to cling to the wall at a time, while the other suckers remain functionless, hence resulting in the poor suction thereof. Third, when a sucker is to leave the wall which it just attaches to, the subsequent sucker has not yet fastened to the wall. At this instance of the transference of clinging suckers, the suction of the precedent sucker weakens. Fourth, since this geometrically circular caterpillar wheel results in the tall posture of the toy, the arm of force between the center of gravity of the toy and the point the toy contacts with the wall is relatively long, thus forming a large torque exerting on the contacting point which is unfavorable to the security of the attachment of the suckers. Consequently, all the aforesaid defects weaken the clambering ability of the toys, and always lead to the failure of a clinging so that a hanging toy may fall off from the wall.
Accordingly, it is the important object of the present invention to provide an improved wall clambering toy to obviate or mitigate the foregoing drawbacks.
According to a feature of this invention, the suckers are mounted on two frame members alternately tramping on the wall. Preferably, the suckers on each frame member are equal both in size and in number so that the suspended suckers on one frame member are subsequently anchored to the wall by an equal force as a result of the counteraction yielded by concurrently pulling the suckers located on the other frame member. Preferably the suckers on one frame member (hereinafter referred to as the longitudinal frame) are lengthwise arranged in alignment with respect to the direction the toy moves, whereas the remaining suckers on the other frame member (hereinafter referred to as transverse frame) are symmetrically and abreast arranged on both sides of the longitudinal frame to ensure the balance of the toy. The longitudinal frame and the transverse frame are mechanically connected with each other in such a manner that they can make relative to-and-fro longitudinal reciprocation accompanied by a periodical change of their height relative to each other, thereby causing the alternate anchoring and detachment of the suckers. When the suckers on the traverse frame anchor to the wall, the suckers on the longitudinal frame remain suspended in the air. Yet when the latter lowers and the former starts to rise, it takes considerable force to pull the anchored sucker off the wall, thus yielding a powerful, corresponding counteraction which presses on the suckers on the longitudinal frame so that they may cling to the wall, and vice versa.
Another feature of this invention lies in that each sucker is provided with a means which can slightly lift up the rim of a sucker to remove the vacuum therein when the sucker is to be pulled off from the wall, thereby facilitating the detachment of the sucker and smoothening the clambering motion.
An embodiment of this invention will be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: